Why not a no-tipping restaurant in Oshkosh?

It was good to read that some restaurants in New York and Pittsburg will be eliminating tipping. Of course, the total cost for cocktails and dinner at these restaurants won’t change much. The menu prices will be increased because servers will be paid more.

There are many good reasons to eliminate tipping:

•The tightwads who never tip would finally pay their fair share.

•Servers would not be able to avoid paying their fair share of income taxes. The IRS estimates that only half of tip income is declared.

•Currently, servers are underpaid (federal minimum wage for servers is $2.13 an hour), with the expectation that tips will bring their pay up to what they are professionally worth. But this can be unfair to servers if some team member does their job poorly; for example, the glasses are dirty. If the server did their job perfectly, they would still be the one to get burned.

•A 20 percent tip is not paying for good service. At a standard restaurant, dinner for me and my bride is $50; a 20 percent tip is $10. At a fancy restaurant, the dinner might be $100 and the tip is $20, yet the server did the same thing.

•A tip is really a required additional amount, a social obligation; it’s not a tip at all. There really is no incentive for the server to do other than their normal job. Tips have become like entitlements in our society.

•A no-tipping policy actually gives servers more financial stability. They know if they work X number of hours, they will take home Y dollars.

•Tipping passes on to the customer the obligation of the employer.

•Tipping can get ugly. It can lead to discrimination based on race, attractiveness, etc. It can also cause conflict between employees, for example, fighting for customers, or when tips are supposedly pooled for all employees. It can upset customers, too. It upsets my evening when I order a pint of beer for $6.50 and leave the change on the bar, and the bartender rolls his eyes — even though “Thank you very much, big tipper” goes unsaid.

•Tipping is not a result of just good service; it’s a result of good management. A successful eatery is a group effort; the toilets must be clean, the eating environment pleasant, the table and dishes clean, quality food, properly cooked and presented and pleasant servers. If it all goes well, there is no reason why the servers should make most of the money.

If I was opening a new restaurant in Oshkosh, I would make it a no-tipping establishment. Yet, when I talked with my friends about this, the majority thought the service would be awful. I disagreed. If you go to a restaurant in Singapore or Argentina you can’t tip; it’s against the law. Tipping is not typical in India or Great Britain. In Germany, customers are expected to round the check up. For example, if the check is for $43.30, customers would pay $44; not a tip, more a common courtesy. Aussies don’t tip. They think it’s foolish. My bride and I have gone to restaurants in all these countries, and servers were not surly; they were courteous and kind.

Tipping used to be frowned upon. The 1936 movie, “The Petrified Forest”, with Humphry Bogart and Bette Davis, has Bette saying, “tipping is un-American,” to a man offering her a tip. Those were the days. How did we ever get into the tipping mess we now have? The evidence overwhelmingly supports a no-tipping policy.

Of course, it takes more than a no-tipping policy for a restaurant to be successful, but I’ll bet Oshkosh people would give it a serious try. I know I would.

Community Columnist Bill Bollom is a retired professor from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.